


slow, slow and steady

by tookumade



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: AtsuHina Week 2020, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24683350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tookumade/pseuds/tookumade
Summary: When Atsumu answers the door at midday, Hinata is standing there with a little grin on his face and a plastic bag dangling from his hand.“Hi, Atsumu-san.”If it were any other day, Atsumu would’ve been delighted to entertain Hinata’s company, but today he feels like there’s a rhino sitting on his back and a pillow has been tied to his face and there’s a pufferfish in his throat. He rubs his eyes. “Hi… Uh, did I miss something? Did we schedule training today?”Hinata gives a huff of laughter. “Even if we did, we wouldn’t tell you in your current condition. None of us would let you. Can I come in?”
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Miya Atsumu
Comments: 27
Kudos: 349





	slow, slow and steady

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [**AtsuHina Week**](https://twitter.com/atsuhinaweek), day 3: Domestic

When Atsumu answers the door at midday, Hinata is standing there with a little grin on his face and a plastic bag dangling from his hand.

“Hi, Atsumu-san.”

If it were any other day, Atsumu would’ve been delighted to entertain Hinata’s company, but today he feels like there’s a rhino sitting on his back and a pillow has been tied to his face and there’s a pufferfish in his throat. He rubs his eyes. “Hi… Uh, did I miss something? Did we schedule training today?”

Hinata gives a huff of laughter. “Even if we did, we wouldn’t tell you in your current condition. None of us would let you. Can I come in?”

“Oh, right…” Atsumu shuffles away from the door. He heads into his room and reappears again with a face mask covering his mouth and nose. Hinata is in his kitchen, peering into his pantry.

“Can I use some rice?”

“Sure. You… didn’t come here just to make yourself lunch, did you?”

Hinata scoops some rice into a saucepan he had grabbed from the cupboard. “Nope! I came to make _you_ lunch. Osamu-san called me and asked me to check up on you.”

_“Osamu did?”_

“Yup.”

“He has your number?!”

“We have each other on speed-dial.”

Atsumu squints at him suspiciously, but ultimately decides not to respond when Hinata throws him a mischievous grin over his shoulder as he runs the rice under the tap to wash.

“Anyway, I’m making you rice porridge for lunch,” he says. 

“But I don’t have any ingredients for it. To be honest, I’m kinda surprised I still have rice…”

Hinata points to the plastic bag he’d brought that had the nearby supermarket’s logo printed on it. “I bought pickled plums and spring onions on my way over.”

“Oh.”

“You should rest. I’ll let you know when I’m done.”

“Um… right,” says Atsumu. He runs his fingers through his fringe absently. He feels a little weird, resting while he’s got a guest over, but he supposes that it isn’t usual circumstance today. “Hey, can you add an egg, too? I think I still have a few in the fridge, somehow.”

“Okay!”

“And… can you make it a bit on the watery side? Not too goopy?”

“Sure thing.” Hinata looks over at him again and makes a friendly shoo-ing motion with his hand. “I’ll be about half an hour.”

“Okay.” With an obedience that he can almost hear Osamu yelling ‘ _why don’t you ever listen to me like that?!_ ’ over, Atsumu shuffles over to his living area and flops onto his couch. There’s no way he’d be able to just sleep in his room while Hinata’s pottering away in his kitchen, so this will have to do. 

Not that he can sleep. Not while Hinata’s in his apartment. Was it a mess? Did it smell weird? Over the past three days, he had had moments of trying to sleep but feeling just too uncomfortable to do so, and he somehow thought that cleaning his apartment (Sakusa would be proud of him, only not, because he was freakin’ _Sakusa_ ) would tire him out a bit. It sort of did—but it also kicked up dust at times, which disagreed with his nasty cold rather badly. So he’d give up and try to sleep again, feeling even more uncomfortable but not quite tired enough to conk out. His pantry is increasingly bare. The thought of going to the supermarket isn’t even on his mind. His appetite has been buried deep underground. He doesn’t—

“Atsumu-san? Atsumu-san, wake up! Rice porridge is ready.”

Atsumu mumbles a ‘ _hrrmmgh_ ’ in protest. Something is tapping his shoulder persistently.

“You should eat it while it’s still hot. It’s no good if it’s cold.”

Prying his eyelids open, Atsumu squints blearily. Hinata is sitting back onto the floor, cross-legged by his coffee table. On the table, there’s a tray with a spoon and a bowl full of steaming rice porridge mixed with egg, sprinkled with finely-chopped spring onions, and with a single pickled plum sitting neatly in the middle of the bowl. There’s sunlight pouring into his living room through the window. Hinata is sitting in the sunlight. Somehow, all these elements are related.

Oh. Oh, _right_ , Hinata is still here!

Atsumu abruptly sits upright, blinking rapidly. “Holy crap, I slept,” he mutters, jamming the palms of his hands against his eyes, and Hinata grins.

“Yeah, you did. Sorry, I should’ve let you keep sleeping, but the rice porridge—”

“No, no, no,” says Atsumu. “This is fine. I’m really—it—… thank you.”

“No problem!”

Atsumu practically slithers onto the ground. His body still feels like absolute rubbish and he has no appetite, but he knows he needs to eat, and Hinata had gone through all the trouble of coming this way to make a meal for him. How many other people could say they were so lucky? Atsumu pulls his face mask under his chin, picks up a spoonful of the rice porridge and blows on it to cool it a little, and then pours it into his mouth. He feels the warmth immediately, trickling soothingly down his sore throat.

“Mmm,” he hums, more of a sigh. “Oh, this is good. Perfect texture.”

“Wait, hold on, I need to let Osamu-san know that I checked up on you.” Hinata pulls his phone from his pocket and takes a photo of Atsumu squinting and still holding the spoon, using his free hand to flip his middle finger at the camera. Hinata cracks up as he taps at his phone. “Yeah, that’ll do it.”

“Thank you for this,” Atsumu mumbles into his next spoonful. “Seriously, I really appreciate it, Shouyou-kun. But… you should go home. You know I hate to kick you out, but you’re gonna catch all my germs if you hang around. Omi-kun would have a field day.”

“Hm? I’ll be okay.”

“If you get sick, you won’t be able to play volleyball, you know.”

The magic words. Hinata’s jaw drops open, and Atsumu grins. No wonder they get along so well.

“But—We’re—It’s the off-season,” says Hinata feebly. “Our next practice match isn’t for another three weeks.”

Now, it’s Atsumu’s turn for his jaw to drop. “ _Shouyou-kun!_ ”

“ _Dammit_ ,” Hinata stage-whispers. “I know you’re _right_ , but…”

“I’ll be fine. There’s not a lot I can do but sleep it off. I’m already taking some cold medication and I’m feeling a little better than yesterday, actually. But, I’ll feel worse knowing that I passed it onto you. Everyone would kick my ass for it. _Osamu_ would kick my ass for it. Hell, I’d _let him_ kick my ass for it.”

Hinata stifles an uncertain laugh. Atsumu eats another spoonful of rice porridge. He can practically hear an insistence brimming that he isn’t sure he has the energy to rebut.

But after a little while, Hinata mercifully sighs and says, “Promise me you’ll call if you need anything.” Atsumu looks up at him. Hinata’s usually bright eyes look a little troubled, and that just wasn’t right. Atsumu finds himself wishing he could brush that cloud away. 

“I will, I promise,” he says with a small smile.

“There’s more rice porridge in the saucepan on the stove. I’ve left the pickled plums and spring onions on the side.”

“Perfect. That’ll be dinner.”

“I got you lozenges, too. And a vitamin C drink.”

“That’s…” Atsumu gives a helpless sort of laugh and rubs his eye tiredly. “You’re sweeping me off my feet, Shouyou-kun.”

And he’s not sure if that was the right thing to say, because when Hinata doesn’t reply, Atsumu looks up at him to see an expression on his face that’s partly deer-caught-in-headlights, but mostly unfamiliar and hard to read. He’s not smiling. He’s not even thinking about joking over Atsumu’s words.

 _Oh_.

“But maybe,” says Atsumu quietly, “we can talk about that later?”

And Hinata’s expression softens. There’s a warmth in Atsumu’s chest that has nothing to do with the rice porridge nor the early afternoon sunlight streaming into the room.

“Of course,” says Hinata.

“I think I’ll be fully recovered in another week or so,” says Atsumu. “Wait for me a bit, okay?”

Hinata smiles now. The cloud in his eyes seems to have faded. Things will be okay.

“Do you remember,” he says, “when we first played each other at Nationals?”

“As if I could ever forget.” How could he, when the scenes of that match are always so crystal clear in his memories? When that day may have changed his life in so many subtle ways? How does one ever forget the first day that they are lucky enough to meet Hinata Shouyou?

“And you told me, at the end, that—”

“I would toss for you one day.”

Hinata’s smile widens, a grin, now; a piece of sunshine. He slowly stands from the table. “If I can wait six years for that, then I can wait a week.” 

Atsumu ducks his head with a little smile of his own. “I’ll call you if I need anything,” he says. “Thank you, Shouyou-kun.”

“Any time, Atsumu-san. Feel better soon. Volleyball training isn’t the same without you.”

“I’ll definitely be back in time for the practice match. And I’ll toss for you then, too.”

“I know,” says Hinata as he begins to take his leave. “I know you keep your promises.”

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/naffnuffnice/)


End file.
